Arizona Charters Found To Yield Greater Gains in Reading

Arizona students enrolled in charter schools for two or three
consecutive years showed stronger gains on reading tests than their
counterparts in traditional public schools, according to a study
released last week.

The study, sponsored by the Goldwater Institute, also showed that
students in charter schools for two years showed a slight test-score
advantage in mathematics over similar students in traditional public
schools.

However, students in charter schools for three years had slightly
lower gains in math than their counterparts in regular public schools.
Arizona has the largest number of charter schools in the nation, with
more than 400 of the publicly financed but administratively independent
schools.

"In sum, charter schools do consistently better in reading,"
concludes the report by the Phoenix think tank, which supports charter
schools. "They do no worse in math, and in some specifications,
charters do better in math as well."

The study's lead author was Lewis C. Solmon, a former dean of the
graduate school of education at the University of California, Los
Angeles who is now a adjunct fellow at the Goldwater Institute. The
co-authors were David Garcia, the director of research and evaluation
in the Arizona education department, and Kern Paark, a doctoral
candidate in economics at Arizona State University.

The researchers studied data from the state's administration of the
Stanford Achievement Test-9th Edition to virtually all students in
traditional public schools and charter schools since 1997. The study
sample started with some 63,000 students enrolled in grades 3-12 in the
1996-97 school year.

Mixed Findings on Math

In reading, students enrolled in charter schools for two consecutive
years showed a 2.35 to 2.44 extra point advantage on the Stanford-9
over students enrolled in traditional public schools for two years.
Students in charter schools for three years in a row showed an
additional 1.31 point advantage. Such gains are statistically
significant, the researchers said.

The picture was a little different in math. Under some models of
analyzing the data, charter students gained more in math. But under one
model, they showed only modest gains after spending two years in
charter schools, and a slight decline after three years. The authors
suggest that charter schools might have a harder time than traditional
public schools in hiring and retaining good math teachers.

Mary Gifford, the director of the institute's Center for
Market-Based Education, said the researchers took pains to analyze the
data using several models so that their findings would stand up to
criticism from charter opponents.

"We have really tried to slice and dice the data any way we could to
make sure the results are the same from model to model," said Ms.
Gifford, who is a former executive director of Arizona's state charter
school board and currently a member of that board.

The test-score gains amount to an educational effect of about one
extra month of school per year, she said.

"Charter schools are more bang for your buck," she argued. "You're
getting more achievement for less money in charter schools than in
traditional public schools."

About 14 percent of Arizona public school students were enrolled in
charter schools in 1999, the third year studied. The study says charter
schools received about $4,500 in per- pupil spending, compared with
$7,000 for traditional public schools.

Ms. Gifford said she was heartened by the study's findings on
student mobility.

Many educators argue that mobility hampers achievement, but the
study found that even students who moved among charter schools during
the three years gained more in reading and math than students who
stayed in traditional public schools.

Vol. 20, Issue 28, Page 9

Published in Print: March 28, 2001, as Arizona Charters Found To Yield Greater Gains in Reading

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